


Chances of Failure

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Blood and Injury, Caring, Eventual Happy Ending, False Accusations, Fights, Gen, Gentleness, Guilt, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Infection, Loyalty, Major Character Injury, Missions Gone Wrong, Near Death, Partnership, Pre-Earth Transformers, Prisoner of War, Recovery, Rescue, Violence, Wrongful Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 10:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10920303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: We only live on optimism, we know the future won’t fail usSo look at your options and tell me to my face that I know what I’m doingOn a mission gone awry, Hound and Trailbreaker are captured and imprisoned. Stripped of all resources and with little hope left, Hound does his best to treat his partner's injuries and help him hold on until a rescue can come.





	Chances of Failure

All it had taken was one wrong move—and that was all it ever took, wasn’t it?

The mission had been simple enough in theory: two settlements in Neutral territory that were both suspected of supplying the Decepticons, so the spec. ops teams had split up: Jazz and Mirage investigated one while Hound and Trailbreaker were at the other. Skids and Bumblebee, meanwhile, would be covertly scouting out the nearby supply bunkers, hoping to find Decepticon weapons or the materials to make them.

If their intel was proved right and Bee and Skids found anything, their first choice would be to tag the stash with trackers, letting the Decepticons lead them right to their newest bases, but the second option would be to seize them as evidence and deprive the opposite faction of much-needed armaments. Either way, it would be a win.

“Piece of chrome-alloy cake!” Trailbreaker had proclaimed with his usual gusto, to which Hound had grinned before they made their way into the settlement. The Neutrals were distrustful and curt but not unkind and treated the pair just as they had expected—at least, until someone cried out from the rear of the camp and drew the attention of the whispering bystanders.

“Treachery! Spies!” a rear guard hollered, dragging the dazed, damaged Bumblebee into view by the neck. “I caught this one in the emergency stockroom; they’re trying to steal from us to fuel their war!” Throwing Bumblebee aside, he lunged at the other startled Autobots, swinging a broadsword. Trailbreaker had managed to disarm him in under a minute, but that was all it took; the commotion drew the attention of the other guards and before Hound and Trailbreaker knew what was happening, they were surrounded.

They weren’t special operatives for nothing. Flinging a force field protectively over Bumblebee’s prone form, Trailbreaker began steadily plowing through whoever got in his way and Hound kept to his back, dancing, feinting, and projecting dozens of holograms around the area to even the odds a little and distract them.

The Neutrals were barely trained and their weapons were crude, rusty, not much of a threat, and Hound could sense in Trailbreaker’s EM field that he was almost tempted to take it easy on them for their admirable efforts. Hound was of the same mind—until two of the guards immediately across from him pulled a vibroblade and a phase cannon out of their subspace.

That changed everything. Hurling a gas can into their midst to buy a few kliks, Hound shouted a warning to Trailbreaker and primed his missile launcher, ready to fight in earnest. The guard with the vibroblade resurfaced from the smoke, the edge of his weapon dragging, burning the ground with a disconcerting screech until he swung, the blade separating into two which spun with incredible speed, powered by something in the hilt.

Hound didn’t have any time to acknowledge this surprise attack, much less block it; instead he ducked and rolled without a thought, his spark skipping a beat when he heard a reedy yelp, like a mechanimal had been stepped on. A few kliks later, something landed on top of him, crushing the air from his vents. Gasping, Hound rolled a few more feet until the weight slid off, leaving a sticky trail in its wake.

Optics wide, Hound fumbled for his gun, but by then the guards’ hands were on him, heaving him to his feet, cuffing him and tearing away his weapons and his comm. link. Only when he was disarmed could he spare a look over his shoulder toward Trailbreaker, but his captors drove him away before he could find him. He caught a brief glimpse of Bumblebee being taken in the opposite direction and then he too was swallowed in the crowd.

Anxiety and tension mounted more and more with every step as Hound was steered into one of the nearby buildings and down to a sublevel of twisting corridors. When they finally reached the prison, Hound grunted and thrashed as he was slammed against the energon bars so his cuffs could be removed before he was shoved inside. Under a minute later, another set of sentries tossed Trailbreaker to the ground beside him with an ugly thud.

“Teebs!” Hound exclaimed as he scrambled to his side, his movements stilling as his horrified optics found the energon pooling from thick gashes across his friend’s waist and chest. “Oh, Primus, what—? Hey, wait!” he called as the guards began retreating down the corridor. “What about my friend?! He needs medical attention!”

“Oh, really? I thought warmongers _liked_ spilled energon!” one of them mocked as they faded into the darkness.

Hound trembled as uncharacteristic rage rose in his chest, but there was very little he could do to use it, so he turned his attention back to Trailbreaker.

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice betraying none of the fear churning in his spark as he swept a trembling hand over the energon, as though he could push it back to the wound. “Are you alright?” It was a stupid, stupid question, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Trailbreaker’s visor flashed several pale shades of blue before sliding back into its natural hue, focusing. “Hound,” he muttered, venting shallowly. “M-My fault—I’m sorry—”

“Enough of that, buddy, it wasn’t you. Can you sit up? You’re bleeding pretty badly; we need to deal with that first.”

“Yeah…okay.” Groaning softly, the larger mech managed to pull himself into a sitting position against the back wall.

Swallowing hard, Hound leaned back on his heelstruts, glancing quickly around the barren cell and finding nothing to staunch the energon flow. Panicking wouldn’t help them either, he decided, venting deeply and trying to ignore how the scent of energon burned his olfactory sensor.

“Do you think you can make a force field?” he asked on impulse. Trailbreaker didn’t acknowledge right away, slumping a bit lower against the wall, and Hound gently shook him. “Teebs, you gotta focus. A force field flat against your chest can buy us a little time until Ratchet fixes you up, alright?” Without waiting for an answer, he carefully steadied Trailbreaker’s hands with his own, his internals twisting with nausea when he saw Trailbreaker’s energon painting his fingertips.

“Haven’t…done _this_ with a field before,” Trailbreaker mused in a strained voice as he hugged his arms tightly against his chest, wrapping the field there with them. “First time for everything…”

“Is that alright?” Hound prompted, worriedly studying the projection as it gently turned and warped around the wounds.

Trailbreaker managed a weak half-smile as he looked up. “If the shield fits. Thanks.”

“Sure.” A silence fell between them as Hound mulled over the question in his mind. He had a distinct suspicion that he shouldn’t ask and wouldn’t want to know, but at the moment his impulse control was lacking, so he blurted it out. “Breaker, what happened?”

Sighing, Trailbreaker let his helm fall back against the wall. “I really don’t know,” he admitted. “Thought you could answer that one. I was busy fightin’ off a mech with a thermal mace and just as I put him down, I felt you drop. I thought you got hurt, so I turned around and then…”

Hound’s mind turned back to when he had ducked the double-bladed sword and he stiffened. Trailbreaker glanced at him questioningly and Hound stared back, shaking his helm wordlessly and gripping his friend’s nearest knee as he tried to center himself.

“It was my fault,” he murmured shakily. “I didn’t even think, I just _ducked_ and—”

At that, Trailbreaker tried to sit up straighter, nearly moving a hand to take hold of Hound’s before remembering himself and returning it to its place against his chest. “Hey, Sarge, if anything, it’s the glitch carrying that thing around who’s to blame,” he pointed out sternly. “And I couldn’t just let you…” His features softened as he trailed off, trembling abruptly and leaning forward. Hound’s grip on his leg tightened.

“Trailbreaker?”

“I’m just…a little dizzy,” his partner managed just before he passed out.

—

Several joors passed before a chute in the wall opened and a pair of energon cubes tumbled down into the cell. Glowering up at the closing chute and whoever may have been operating it, Hound moved to inspect the cubes for any cracks from their impact. They were a bit dented, but otherwise intact…in better shape than Trailbreaker, in any case. A sharp stab of guilt burned through him and he glanced over at his companion, who had perked up only a fraction at the prospect of fuel.

“Low-grade,” Hound informed him, offering him one of the two cubes. It took him a few kliks to realize Trailbreaker wasn’t going to move his hands from his wounds to take it, so with a hot flush of embarrassment through his systems, he returned to his previous position across from him. “Here…drink up,” he prompted, positioning the cube close to Trailbreaker’s mouth and frowning again when that mouth only quirked into an amused smile.

“I would say I’m not in the mood if it weren’t for the fact that you’re never gonna live down this robo-henning routine.”

“I’m not—!” Hound started to protest, but as Trailbreaker began laughing as much as he could without wincing, the scout realized it was the first time Teebs had sounded like himself since they’d been here. He opted not to finish the objection, revising, “Well, if you hadn’t been worrying about me, I wouldn’t need to hand-fuel you. C’mon.” As Trailbreaker obediently swallowed a few mouthfuls, Hound let his optics fall down slightly. “You don’t look so good, partner.”

“We both know I’ve been through worse,” Trailbreaker pointed out, though that wasn’t exactly reassuring. He forced down one last gulp and then turned his face away. “I’ll be fine, Hound. Really. I’m just a little tired.” There was a pause and then he glanced past Hound toward the bars, lowering his voice. “Y’know…I don’t buy it anymore that the Neuts are supplying the Decepticons…I think it’s the other way around. The mech who nicked me had _training_ and he had to get that from the same place he got his weapon.”

“It makes sense,” Hound concurred thoughtfully, doing his best to overlook the fact that Trailbreaker had casually called his wounds a couple of _nicks_. “Maybe the Decepticons came along, acting like fellow Neutrals who wanted them to be armed and trained ‘just in case’. They would present us as the warmongers, like that one guard said, and then it comes down to this.”

“I wonder what they’ve done with Bee…The force field I had on him went down when I did.”

“I saw him being taken in the opposite direction than they took me,” Hound recalled. “Maybe they wanted to interrogate him.”

“Or…” Trailbreaker’s thoughts were clear enough that he didn’t need to voice them. His visor’s blue softened a shade or two, telling of his worry. He shifted, vents hitching, and looked furtively around, EM field lashing anxiously around his tightened plating.

It was a rare mech that actually saw this side of Trailbreaker, the side that just couldn’t stretch any farther, couldn’t reach for even _one more_ iota of that optimism and cheer. In fact, as far as Hound knew, he was the only one Teebs would open up to like this. He had always tried to be worthy of that, searching for that optimism in himself when Teebs couldn’t manage, and he did it again now, intercepting him before he could work himself up. That was the last thing he needed.

“Bumblebee’s a slippery little guy,” he reminded him, soothing. “If anyone could get out of a place like this, he could.”

“Too bad we don’t have him with us,” Trailbreaker retorted nervously.

“Hey, now, it’s a good thing that we don’t! When Bee escapes, he’ll radio Jazz and the others to get us out,” Hound stated firmly, his tone allowing for no argument. “And even if that’s not the case, even if Bee can’t get away, Jazz is just as quick on his feet. He’ll realize what’s happened and come for us anyway. He’s not team leader for nothing.” Trailbreaker continued to fidget, but Hound noticed his wince and realized it wasn’t because of his words anymore. He changed the subject. “You want to lie down?” The ground was hard and cold, but it was all they had.

“Yeah.” Once he had been moved onto his back, Trailbreaker ex-vented heavily, uncomfortable but exhausted. “Thanks.”

“I got your back,” Hound assured him as he too settled down with his arms pillowing his helm. Eventually, after some time staring up at the ceiling, he let himself wind down into recharge.

—

Sometime later, Hound jolted back into awareness when something to his left bumped him. When it happened again, he looked over and saw that his partner was shivering. Unease stirring in him, he reached out, vents hitching as his fingers caught the heat crackling through Trailbreaker’s field.

Propping himself up on his elbows, he peered past the force field at the energon glistening against the deep gashes. As he had expected, it was hazy and discolored.

“Malware works quickly around here,” he muttered, just loudly enough that Trailbreaker twitched and stirred. “Oh, scrap, sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Glad you did,” Trailbreaker answered, quiet and raspy, his arms tightening unconsciously over his chest so the field hummed.

Hound decided not to ask about what that might imply, instead searching for a different question.

“How are you feeling?”

Trailbreaker paused a few kliks before forcing a shivery smile as he quipped, “Like I want to know who the management is so I can complain. Their berths could be softer.”

Hound’s optics narrowed slightly. “You know what I mean.”

“I’ll also be sure to report your missing sense of humor at the front desk.…Alright, buddy. I’m pretty cold.”

“You sound like you need a little more energon. I guess they didn’t want that to be on your list of complaints,” Hound mused, noting that more energon had fallen through the chute sometime during their recharge. “And I don’t want to hear any more _robo-hen_ comments! You need the fuel so you can keep up that force field.”

“Yes, sir, commander,” Trailbreaker said playfully.

At least he seemed to be in better spirits than he was before he’d rested, but Hound’s spirits had only fallen farther. The green mech pursed his lips tightly as he propped him into a sitting position. “Keep it nice and tight, okay?”

“I got it, Hound. I’ll be fine.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Would you rather I didn’t?”

“Yes. No. My point is that you don’t have to. I know it’s only for my benefit,” Hound huffed softly. “It’s my fault you were hurt and you’re trying to…spare me the guilt.” It wasn’t working; in fact, it was doing exactly the opposite. Remorse was aching through every nervecircuit in him, but he was fairly certain Teebs could already tell.

“That’s not why I’m saying it; I say it cos it’s _true_ ,” Trailbreaker assured him earnestly. “Cos I’ve got you here to make sure.”

Hound’s surprise at the words must have showed just as clearly as his guilt, because Trailbreaker leaned forward, enunciating more clearly, “I’m glad you’re here. Like you said, you’ve got my back. I know you always do.”

Despite himself, Hound couldn’t help but smile at the loyalty he saw in his friend’s face. “Alright, then. Let’s get a little more fuel in you.”

After dutifully drinking some more energon and refreshing the force field’s strength, Trailbreaker was already starting to nod off again. “Sorry I’m not a more interesting cellmate,” he offered, his voice and visor light falling low like they had before. “I’m just…still kinda tired.”

“You lost a lot of energon and you’re overheating. You need the rest.” Hound finished off the energon cube, setting it aside and squeezing Trailbreaker’s shoulder.

Trailbreaker relaxed under his touch, his vents evening out despite his trembling. “It wasn’t your fault, by the way,” he insisted softly. “It’s what partners are s’posed to do. I’m pretty sure I told you that before, but if I didn’t…there it is.”

Contemplating this, Hound let his hand linger even after Trailbreaker slipped away.

—

The wounded mech’s condition only worsened with time. His recharge was fitful, plagued with nightmares, and Hound wasn’t sure whether or not it was a good idea to wake him, even for fuel. Bringing him out of it might just disorient him or worse, put him in even more pain, and that was the very last thing Hound wanted.

He didn’t seem to be resting well, but it was the only rest he could get, so Hound bided his time and tried not to focus too hard on how ’Breaker seemed to be suffering. He tried not to notice whenever his visor flared almost violet with fear and pain and his hands twitched into fists. He tried to block out the gasping and whimpering.

It didn’t work.

Another fuel-time came and went and Hound let him recharge through it, but once his partner yelped and started thrashing more violently, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He wasn’t about to let him make his injuries worse. Taking ahold of his shoulders, Hound carefully but firmly pinned him down.

“Up you get, Trailbreaker,” he urged. “Wake up. C’mon.”

Overtaxed systems whining, his friend continued to struggle, to the point where it was hard for Hound to keep a grip on him. He held on determinedly, raising his voice until Trailbreaker finally arched off the ground, gasping, still trying to thrash away even though he was online.

“Hey, hey, it’s just me,” Hound soothed, but Teebs didn’t seem to hear him, recoiling from his hands until he hit the wall and a larger force field sparked to envelop his entire frame in a protective bubble. Hound stared at it, taken aback, and hovered a hand against it as Trailbreaker gradually stopped hyperventilating.

“Hound…?”

“Yeah, it’s me. You were having a nightmare,” Hound ventured tentatively. Groaning, Trailbreaker did his best to sit up, but the arm he was using to support the effort buckled and fell back underneath him. He tried twice more and eventually managed to put his back against the wall again, coughing raggedly.

Spark quickening, Hound brought his other hand next to the one he had lifted. “Bring this down so I can help you,” he pressed, doing his best not to sound frantic, but already he could see the wounds had reopened. Energon was trickling down to pool in Trailbreaker’s lap and he didn’t seem to notice, staring back at Hound with abstract confusion.

“Where are we? Where’s Jazz? He was s’posed to debrief us!”

“It—it got canceled. Jazz had something else to do,” Hound lied desperately.

“Is he okay? Wait, the…the refugees! We need to go back for them!”

The Decepticons’ siege of Altihex had been over five diuns ago. “Trailbreaker, they’re fine! It’s okay, everyone’s fine. Now come on, Breaker, you _have_ to let me in!”

Those last words were familiar; they were the words that had forced Trailbreaker to put down the shield the first time he had put it between them, the words that had ended their first argument. To Hound’s relief, Trailbreaker responded to them in the same fashion; the shield dissolved and Hound scrambled forward, pressing his own hands against the gouges and earning another sharp cry as he struggled to get the bleeding under control again, willing Trailbreaker’s self-repair systems to work faster.

—

The next couple of orns passed in slow motion. Trailbreaker rarely woke; he had lost too much energon and his fever wasn’t passing. When he was awake, he was panicked and couldn’t catch ahold of his vents, usually refusing to refuel despite Hound’s pleas. Twice more he had to talk him down through force fields and when he wasn’t doing that, he sat next to him, making sure that his wounds weren’t leaking again.

They were nasty, edged in what looked like and very well could be rust, but Hound couldn’t afford to be squeamish when he was staunching them. More often than not, he kept a hand on Trailbreaker’s chest long after it served any use, staring listlessly off as he made sure he could feel his partner’s spark battering its chamber.

By the third orn, Trailbreaker wasn’t waking at all. Ignoring any fuel that came, Hound didn’t move from his side as the night passed and never recharged.

“Stay with me. They’re coming. They’re coming for us,” he pleaded every so often, grief strangling his voice to a whisper. “Just stay with me…”

—

On the fourth orn, Hound spotted movement somewhere down the hall. He wondered if he too had started to hallucinate, especially when he saw a glimmer of a white that he highly doubted any of these Neutrals could afford, but when he saw a similarly high-caste blue, he abandoned all caution.

“Mirage!” he hollered, his spark ready and willing to break if it was a mistake, but to his relief, the mech in question rushed forward.

“Hound? …Primus!” the Towersmech gasped as his optics fell to the energon staining the floor and Trailbreaker’s prone form.

“We need to get him to a medic _now!_ ” Hound commanded. Mirage nodded curtly, tossing Hound his weapons before taking one of Trailbreaker’s arms over his shoulder. As the scout rearmed himself, he demanded, “How did you find us?”

Mirage briefly explained that it had happened just as Hound had predicted: after extensive time being interrogated, Bumblebee had managed to maneuver himself up through the energon chute in a similar cell to make his escape. The Neutrals had pursued him for a full orn and a half before breaking off, allowing him to fight off the Neutrals at the _other_ camp, report back to Jazz, and alert him to the situation.

:Raj, communications are back online,: Skids’ voice could be heard crackling through Mirage’s link.

“Good, thank you. Bumblebee, can you hear me? I’ve found them! Bring the pod as close as you can to the entrance for pickup. Jazz, sir, we’ll need a diversion.”

:I’m on it!:

:Copy that.:

 There were a few sentries who tried to stop them and while he usually wasn’t a vengeful mech, Hound was all too happy to expend some of his suppressed anger and the stress that had taken such a toll on him and his partner. When they emerged to the ground level, however, he found that every other threat had already been disposed of.

Frankly, it looked like a storm had laid waste to their camp, Hound noticed with a touch of amazement, looking up when a single figure, Jazz, strolled nonchalantly out of the supply bunker, dragging a hover cart of Decepticon weapons in his wake. Though their leader’s gait was as casual as ever, there was something in his face that told Hound not to ask. He wasn’t inclined to, at least not right now.

It was only after Trailbreaker was safely in Ratchet’s care and he had absolute reassurance that he would be alright that Hound felt like he could vent again.

—

“Told you I’d be fine,” Trailbreaker said, half-awake though he was. Hound’s spark clenched tightly with relief when he saw his friend grinning at him as he winched up the upper half of the automated medical berth.

“I know, I know.” As Trailbreaker reached out to pat his shoulder, Hound dodged it, moving in and hugging him tightly. He could sense Trailbreaker’s surprise and tightened his grip against it. “But I couldn’t help being worried for a while there,” he admitted in a lower voice.

Chuckling warmly, Trailbreaker returned the embrace. “Oh, really? I never noticed,” he joked, affection rippling through his EM field. “Thanks for taking care of me, buddy.”

“Of course. I’ve always got you covered.”

“In that case,” Trailbreaker began as they separated, “maybe next time you’d be so kind as to make sure we _both_ duck!”

Hound nodded sheepishly, finally able to take this comment without as much guilt now that the danger was behind them. “Yeah, Teebs. Count on it.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's been way, _way_ too long since I've written Hound and Trailbreaker O.o  
>  Also it's been even longer since I wrote a little something about Jazz being a baller  
> Sooo here's 4000 words for them! I hope you liked it; comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!


End file.
